


you can see the world you brought to life.

by LLReid



Series: kamilah’s forever. [10]
Category: Bloodbound (Visual Novels)
Genre: Canon LGBTQ Character, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Female Character, LGBTQ Themes, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Romantic Soulmates, Same-Sex Marriage, Sibling Bonding, Siblings, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:34:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29956905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LLReid/pseuds/LLReid
Summary: Inspired by; Love Me Like You Do by Ellie Goulding.~~~~“Vegetarian spaghetti bolognese,” Jax said as he and Zahra waltzed out of the kitchen carrying four plates of food. “You two are doing the dishes.”“I thought we were banned from entering the kitchen?,” Kamilah snorted.“You’re banned from cooking,” Zahra corrected her. “You’re officially on cleanup duty for the rest of your lives because it’s highly unlikely anyone will be set on fire.”She sighed. “For the last time, I set her sleeve on fire. It’s not like I burnt my wife at the stake!”“That’s debatable,” Jax winked.“You also basically drowned her, too,” Zahra teased. “Nothing says ‘I love you’ like setting your wife on fire and then throwing her in a pool of freezing cold water.”“Am I ever going to live that one down?,” she pouted.“Nope,” Zahra said.“Never,” echoed Jax. “You ran through a locked glass door. That’s not something you can just live down in this family.”
Relationships: Kamilah Sayeed/Anastasia Sayeed, Kamilah Sayeed/Main Character (Bloodbound)
Series: kamilah’s forever. [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2108751
Comments: 11
Kudos: 23





	you can see the world you brought to life.

“Are you really not going to let us help?,” Kamilah pouted in the kitchen doorway. After a long day at work the very last thing she wished to do was attempt to cook, however, she did not appreciate being banned from the kitchen by her seventeen year old son. 

There ought to be laws against such things! She thought.

“It has been less than twenty-four hours since you basically set mom on fire—“

“I did not set your mother on fire!,” she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest like a moody teenager. 

“You kinda did, honey,” Anastasia chimed in from the living room couch without even looking up from the novel she was reading. 

“I set your sleeve on fire. There is a difference.” She threw her hands in the air in exasperation and heaved a dramatic sigh. “And it was basically your fault for pouring too much oil in the— in the pot you fry mortal food in!”

“Frying pan,” Zahra quipped from inside the kitchen. “It’s called a frying pan, genius, and this is called an intervention. You guys are officially banned from making anything besides cereal and you’re not allowed to cook when we’re not home to supervise. So it’s ordering in or cereal, you got that?”

“My cooking is not that bad!” She glanced at Anastasia for backup and saw immediately that she wasn’t going to get any. “Is my cooking really that bad?”

“You set me on fire.”

“I put it out very quickly!”

“I put it out psychically and you panicked and threw her in the pool,” snorted Zahra.

“You threw yourself and her through the damn glass door,” Jax teased as he nodded towards the newly repaired door that led to their rooftop. “It was like something from a Marvel movie.”

“I was simply ensuring the blaze was controlled!,” she pouted. “I set my wife on fire! What was I supposed to do, waste time fumbling with the lock when my Annie was ablaze?!”

“Kami. Sweetheart. Love of my life,” Anastasia giggled. “Stand down before you give yourself a stroke or something. We’re strong, confident women who run multi-billion dollar companies and kick ass on a regular basis but we can’t cook for shit... and that’s just fine. We don’t have to excel at everything.”

She grumbled, the noise low in her throat as she trudged petulantly across the living room and did her best to ignore the teenagers who thought her angst really quite hilarious. One day she’d be able to laugh about being such a terrible cook that she’d literally set the most precious person in the whole world to her alight... but not today. 

She didn’t usually look back at mistakes the way she’d been dwelling on this one. When she made foolish decisions, she filed the consequences under lessons learned and told herself not to be stupid in the same way again. But she simply couldn’t stop thinking about the coulda’s, woulda’s, and shoulda’s of this particular scenario.

Really, she was just thankful that Anastasia hadn’t been hurt and hadn’t been upset with her about the accident. If the flames had touched her skin at all she’d never have been able to forgive herself for it... and even now she still felt terrible regardless of the fact her wife had assured her that everything was fine. She didn’t know of any other relationships that were strong enough to survive a narrowly escaped arson... but she knew with absolute certainty that Anastasia knew she genuinely hadn’t meant it. She’d actually been the one who’d burst into tears in the aftermath whilst smothering Anastasia with affection and Anastasia had been the one to comfort her about the entire thing.

Of all the people in the world she despised and would’ve gladly set ablaze with her horrendous cooking— why the hell did she have to do it to her favourite individual? To the person she’d raise cities to the ground just to keep safe?

“Come here.” Anastasia sat her book aside and opened her arms, and she didn’t hesitate before flopping down on top of her. She curled up in her arms and nuzzled her cheek against her chest. “You’re moping, still.”

“I know,” she pouted. “I’ve been in such a terrible mood all day I’ve unintentionally made three grown mortals cry and stress ate my way through twelve packets of gummy bears.”

Anastasia kissed the crown of her head. “I know you have been. Why the hell do you think I sent you those pictures?”

That startled a laugh out of her. Probably the only time she’d genuinely smiled that day had been when she’d received a number of elicit pictures of her doing the sort of things to herself that had almost driven her to ditch an important meeting in order to do those very things to her. “Yes... those did brighten my day considerably.”

“The ones you sent me afterwards were beautiful.” She tickled at the roots of her hair and gave her another kiss. “Tell me what you need to feel better."

"You," she said simply, that one word tearing to the very heart of Anastasia. "Just you.”

A long strand of dark hair fell into her face. Anastasia touched her fallen hair with a butterfly's delicacy. She might not have noticed that touch, except that she noticed everything she did. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and met her gaze steadily. It was a small pleasure to be touched so gently. Small pleasures like this were the best sort to her because they were everywhere and nobody else had ever just... cherished her the way Anastasia did. Anyone who needed grand spectacles to feel happy or cared for was destined to be disappointed much of the time, she’d learned that much at Gaius’ side.

“Accidents happen, love,” Anastasia soothed. “You know I’m fine and that we’re fine, mm?”

“I know,” she sighed, her eyes flickering up to look at her. “I simply need to mope a while longer.”

“Then let’s mope without feeding into the sort self-hating thoughts I know are crowding your mind right now,” Anastasia murmured, tickling at her cheek with the side of her finger. “Our dinner is being cooked for us. We’ve both had long days. We’ll mope as long as we need to— do you want your glass of wine now or can you wait until dinner?”

“We?,” she smiled softly. 

“We.” She nuzzled her hair. “Now, I can either bore you to distraction by explaining the really cool science behind the Raines Corp modules that will be added onto the International Space Station within the next decade and run you through what we hope to accomplish with them... or we can pour some wine and you can tell me about all the times you stopped yourself from stabbing people today. It’s your choice entirely.”

She chuckled and then made a purring sound in her throat as Anastasia continued playing with her hair. With a smile she took her free hand pressed her lips into her palm, covering it in kisses. “So my choices are hearing you get so enthused about science you practically start shaking and sharing my own excitement about all the throats I could’ve slit but didn’t?” 

“Both cheer you up almost as much as that thing I do with my tongue,” she wiggled her eyebrows around theatrically, “and since me going down on you in the living room when the kids are right next door is all kinds of fucked up—“

“WE! CAN! HEAR! YOU!,” screamed Zahra as the music in the kitchen immediately got louder. “THIS IS CHILD ABUSE!” She poked her head out of the kitchen door. “And you two are far too old to be sending pictures! Goddammit! Not only is that all kinds of gross but it’s dumb because if you guys get hacked your boobs are gonna be literally everywhere—“

“Jesus, Zahra!,” Jax yelled. “Stop talking about their boobs, I’m still traumatised from overhearing—“

“Well it’s not my fault they’re being dumb and sending nudes! Someone has gotta talk some sense into them!” Their seventeen year old marched out of the kitchen with her hands on her hips and stopped at the centre of the living room. “Yes, I get that you’re obviously not sending them to other people. I also get that mom makes sure our shit is secure but—“

“Just be glad we’re not divorced like 95% of your friends parents,” Kamilah huffed, trying not to laugh at the overprotective lecture that they were about to be given. Really, she was trying... but both Jax and Zahra were extremely protective of them and never held back when it came to speaking their minds. “We’ve been together for 56 years and still have a stronger and more passionate relationship than most people will ever dream of having. Let us live.”

“We’re super glad you guys obviously still love each other so much but you gotta keep it PG,” Jax laughed from the kitchen. “You’re both famous as hell and if you get hacked those pictures are gonna be everywhere— and we’re going to college next year, the last thing we need is random kids talking about our moms nudes! How would you feel if I was sending dick pics and they got out?”

“I’d behead whichever mewling mortal dared breach your trust by deciding to share them and then display their severed head on a spike atop the Ahmanet skyscraper as a symbol of what happens when people mess with my family,” she said in a tone of complete seriousness without missing a beat. “No one would dare cross us again after that.”

Anastasia and Zahra’s jaws dropped and Jax stuck his head out of the kitchen door with an equally dumbfounded look on his face. Then they all started giggling and a pout formed on her lips. She really couldn’t comprehend why they often found her literal answers to these sorts of questions so amusing— if they only knew how fearsome a sight London Bridge had been centuries earlier with traitors heads embellishing it, they wouldn’t find it comical at all.

In fact, they might actually consider it a rather smart idea to bring back the practice.

“Kami,” Anastasia giggled whilst stroking her hair. “Beheading people. Bad.”

She sighed. “Beheading people who mess with my family will always be perfectly socially acceptable— and Jax asked. You all ought to know by now not to ask me things that you do not want answered seriously.”

“You’re so extra,” Zahra teased. “God. I'm getting worried that you might be a little bloodthirsty.”

“I’m fully aware that I am a rather stabby individual and I am perfectly okay with that— and I’m not the one lecturing my parents about their sex life!,” she fired back with a laugh. “You have some nerve calling me extra, young lady!”

“You did not just ‘young lady’ me,” Zahra spluttered.

“Well this is just what happens when you raise us to be this comfortable at home,” Jax chuckled. “You get our unsolicited advice and unrestrained opinions on everything, and you get banned from your own kitchen.”

“We might’ve tried harder to be worse parents if we knew we’d ever be having this discussion with the two of you,” Anastasia giggled.

Zahra started laughing and shook her head as she began walking back to the kitchen to help cook. “Seriously. Behave yourselves.”

“What the hell just happened?,” she snorted the moment the kitchen door closed, by which point the wicked gleam had returned to her eyes.

“We just had our decision to soundproof our bedroom affirmed—“

“YOU SOUNDPROOFED YOUR BEDROOM?!,” Jax yelled over the blaring music. 

“NOPE. NO. IM DONE.” Zahra poked her head out the kitchen door and started laughing. “On one hand I feel like we should be thanking you for soundproofing it and saving us from years of mental torture but on the other I feel like I should say what Auntie Lily would say: y’all need Jesus.”

“The only thing we need right now is a strong glass of wine,” she lamented as she rose to her feet and made her way to the bar. “This is madness. Utter madness.”

“We’re well aware you two are mad,” Jax teased. 

“So if you guys get to have a glass of wine to deal with tonight, does that mean we get one too?,” Zahra smirked.

“You know we don’t mind if you want to have a glass with dinner,” Anastasia shrugged. 

“Then in that case, pour us one each and we’ll have it while we’re eating,” Jax called. 

“We’ll have whatever you guys are having,” added Zahra.

She rolled her eyes as the kitchen door closed once again and then started laughing as she gathered four wine glasses. Unlike a lot of parents who taught their children to be ashamed of even wanting to drink alcohol and didn’t teach them how to be responsible with it, she and Anastasia saw no problem in letting their almost-eighteen-year-olds enjoy a glass with dinner on a Friday night or on special occasions. They figured it was better to open the lines of communication about drinking under their supervision, rather than forbidding them from experimenting with it and simply making them sneak around behind their backs at parties with their classmates.

They’d actually been called to aid a number of their children’s friends who’d been forbidden from taking even a sip of alcohol and then gone off the rails the moment they arrived at one of these high school parties with no adult supervision, because they simply didn’t know how to drink responsibly. She liked to think that Jax and Zahra had never gotten themselves into such a state because they actually talked to them about the sorts of things that could happen when a person had too much alcohol in their system, because they actually took the time to explain why consuming it in moderation was important for them and the people around them. 

What was it about most mortal parents, she wondered as she poured the wine. Why did they insist upon treating their growing offspring like children, regardless of how old they became? Did they truly believe that they were doing them any favours by sheltering them from everything and provoking them into sneaking around in order to gain the smallest of personal freedoms? Why was it that they seemed to have such a penchant for complicating stuff that probably shouldn’t be all that complicated?

“Teenagers,” she muttered as she handed Anastasia her glass of Screaming Eagle Cabernet 1992. “Bloody teenagers.”

Anastasia clinked the rim of her glass against hers and then took a sip of the wine. “It’s in moments like this that I realise we’ve actually done a really good job with them.”

“Me too,” she breathed, taking a sip out of her glass. “When you were pregnant a small part of me worried we’d somehow wind up raising serial killers— that I would somehow be the one to mess them up. I knew you’d be wonderful but I didn’t think I was capable of being as good a parent as I’ve apparently been.”

“I knew all along that you’d be great.” Blue eyes scanned her face, the honesty swimming in their icy depths as Anastasia studied her. “From the second I peed on those bloody sticks and the two lines appeared on each one of them, it was like someone flipped a switch and you became more determined than ever to continue bettering yourself. Its been beautiful to watch— and there’s no one I’d rather have done this with.”

She pressed a kiss to her brow, her eyes flickering closed as she thought back to the day they’d found out Anastasia was pregnant and had stood there sobbing in the bathroom for a good hour with at least ten positive pregnancy tests spread across the counter. As excited as she’d been, she’d also been terrified. Terrified to be a parent and to have the responsibility of moulding functional members of society. Terrified at the thought of supporting a pregnant woman. Terrified that somehow she’d eventually do something terrible and drive her family away from her.

From the moment they’d first looked at those positive tests all those years ago, with no idea that they were going to have more than one baby, she’d known she’d never been happy without her family. That no matter what she wanted them in her life through the centuries. Everyday. 

She remembered how she’d cradled Anastasia in her arms. How her overprotectiveness of her had somehow managed to skyrocket, when she truly hadn’t believed such a thing would even be possible— even now, she only ever grew more protective of her. She had vowed to herself that day that she would be the one to take care of her, of any children that she gave her, and she would make sure they never had to worry for anything that she could give them. 

But despite all the promises she’d made to herself that day, she couldn’t actually imagine who their children would grow up to be or how they’d turn out. All she could think of were people who had her impossibly blue eyes. She pictured her round with their child and it had been the most mind-blowing feeling in the world— but even the thought had paled in comparison to how beautiful she’d actually been as the pregnancy had progressed. 

Everything that she’d once sworn off in her life, this one woman had made her reevaluate and actually brought to fruition. Because of her. It was all her. She’d never felt this way about another woman. She never would. There would never be another woman that completed the other half of her soul like her Annie did.

“It still baffles me that two babies even fit in here,” Anastasia said, breaking the silence as she ran a hand over her perfectly flat tummy. “And that they’re both taller than me now.”

“Zahra is only two inches taller than you,” she snorted. “That is not the sort of earth shattering height difference you think it is.”

Anastasia pouted. “Our children being 6’3” and 5’3” may not seem so terrible to you, since you’re pretty damn close to being 5’9” when you’re not wearing heels— like, weren’t people more than two thousand years ago supposed to be really short?! You should be my height!”

“I’ve always been an exceptional specimen,” she shrugged. “People often thought me a living god, as I towered over Cleopatra... it was really quite amusing.”

“I, however, feel like I’m going to strain my neck having a conversation with the three of you!”

“My poor baby,” she teased, giving her hair a playful tug as she leaned in to kiss her neck. For all her bravado about being exactly 5’1” and three quarters of an inch tall, she knew it genuinely irked her that she was so petite. “I couldn’t imagine you any taller,” she mused, her lips brushing against her thrumming pulse as she spoke. “You’re the perfect height for me to dominate. I can just pick you up and do whatever the hell I want with you, and I think that’s rather marvellous.”

Anastasia laughed softly as the music in the kitchen immediately got louder and she opened her mouth to speak, but anything she could’ve said died on her lips as Jax emerged from the kitchen with a fowl look on his face. He glared at them as he marched towards the bar where the children’s glasses of wine were sat, not saying a word as they dissolved into laughter.

“We’re torn between calling CPS and poisoning your food,” Zahra yelled from the kitchen. “We’re leaning towards the latter so that we inherit your companies and the family fortune.”

“For the love of god, ensure you measure the correct dosage of whichever poison you decide to use,” she quipped. “I will not be amused if my death is a drawn out affair and I would prefer to go before your mother. I’ve watched her die once and am not prepared to do it again.”

“Wow,” Zahra huffed.

“That was morbid,” laughed Anastasia.

“She started it,” Kamilah shrugged, patting her thigh to placate her. “And I’m serious. Were they really to murder us, I’d be pissed if my death was anything but swift. I’ve taught them better than that— were I to be laying on the floor, breathing my last, and still able to behead a number of fools in the time it took between the poison entering my bloodstream and my final moment, it would anger me quite severely.”

Anastasia started laughing. “You’re such a dork.”

“What?,” she huffed. “Would you not be miffed if our hypothetical death was a botched affair, given how much training we’ve ensured they’ve received in the art of killing their enemies?”

“I think I’d be more upset about the fact my children were literally murdering me,” Anastasia giggled.

“Well, yes, I would obviously be upset about that too. However, I would tolerate no child of ours being so sloppy,” she pouted. “It would be quite an unpleasant way to go.”

“You two are so weird,” Zahra giggled. “Like, you do realise other families don’t talk about this stuff, right?”

“Other families are obviously living their lives the wrong way then,” she shrugged. “I actually think I’d poison myself if we insisted on sticking to the sort of mundane discussions most families did— there is only so many times we can discuss the fact your teachers are impudent imbeciles without me wanting to take drastic action.”

“Ah, so we’re talking about them killing us to keep you from stabbing their maths teacher?,” Anastasia smirked.

Kamilah nodded and raised her glass. “Precisely.”

“Dinner will be ready in five minutes, you weirdos,” Jax laughed. “Can you, like, behave yourselves for five minutes?”

“Most likely not,” Anastasia breathed.

“Given our track record, I would not consider it likely.” She took a long sip from her glass of wine. “Especially now that we’ve had a drink and have already begun discussing the scenario where you two commit parenticide. It is very likely only going to get worse from here on in.”

They all started laughing at that.

It was at times like this she wondered if she and Lysimachus would’ve had this sort of relationship with their parents, had they lived long enough to see them leave behind their childhood. They had to be crying tears of joy up there somewhere, watching her happiness unfold. Or laughing hysterically along with them. She often couldn’t figure out which one when she thought of them... but, regardless, she hoped with all her heart that they could see her now.

“Is it bad that I actually take pride in being a pain in their asses?,” she sniggered in Anastasia’s ear.

“I just consider us being unashamed of the fact we’re really weird together as payback for the time they messed up their bathroom so bad with neon green hair dye that we had to redecorate,” Anastasia giggled. “Or the time they decided to see if they were strong enough to move the entire Raines Corp skyscraper with their abilities and caused a city wide power outage.”

She snorted, and when she spoke her lips nuzzled her ear. “What were they... nine? ten?”

“Eight,” Anastasia huffed. “Explaining that one to the mortal politicians was not fun.”

They both laughed softly at the memory. They could laugh about it now, but at the time it’d been a rather frightening experience to have the US government taking as much interest in their children’s abilities as they did Anastasia’s— and in order to protect them Anastasia had systematically stolen numerous state secrets from the minds of high ranking individuals that could potentially ruin the mortal government, should she decide to go public with them. She’d also waltzed right into Fort Knox, Area 51, and The Oval Office, just to prove to them how capable she was of breaching each and every one of their defences, should they even mention their children’s names— at the end of the day Anastasia was as much a mother as she was the infamous Bloodkeeper, and what mothers wanted for their children, they got, and if the world and all it held must be broken in the getting of their safety, then so be it.

Knowledge and power were tools, and like all tools, their impact was in the hands of the user. Anastasia was the protector of their family — the entirety of vampire kind in every city or town around the world. She was their key to survival and the rules of her reign were simple: trust no mortal government, be ever watchful and if trouble came hit first and hit hard. It had worked for them so far, and Anastasia knew she had to fight to keep their kind protected, because to decline battle was a defeat.

“Vegetarian spaghetti bolognese,” Jax said as he and Zahra waltzed out of the kitchen carrying four plates of food. “You two are doing the dishes.”

“I thought we were banned from entering the kitchen?,” Kamilah snorted.

“You’re banned from cooking,” Zahra corrected her. “You’re officially on cleanup duty for the rest of your lives because it’s highly unlikely anyone will be set on fire.”

She sighed. “For the last time, I set her sleeve on fire. It’s not like I burnt my wife at the stake!”

“That’s debatable,” Jax winked. 

“You also basically drowned her, too,” Zahra teased. “Nothing says ‘I love you’ like setting your wife on fire and then throwing her in a pool of freezing cold water.”

“Am I ever going to live that one down?,” she pouted.

“Nope,” Zahra said.

“Never,” echoed Jax. “You ran through a locked glass door. That’s not something you can just live down in this family.”

“This is why I drink,” she concluded. “If I’m not being tormented by that bloody golden beast that still steals my shoes on a regular basis and thinks it’s appropriate to sit in my spot on the couch, it’s nothing but slander from you lot. You actually enjoy tormenting me, don’t you?”

“Yup,” Anastasia nodded.

“Yeah,” Jax agreed.

“We’re the only ones who can torment you without getting stabbed,” Zahra beamed. “Which means we have to be extra annoying because everyone else is so scared of winding up with a dagger protruding from their eyeball— and Dobby agrees. That’s why he pisses you off so much.”

She snorted whilst twirling her pasta around her fork and her dark brows arched in bemusement. “And the dog told you as much, did he?”

“He’s a Sayeed,” Jax said, “so it’s pretty obvious he agrees.”

“Unbelievable.” Her hand stopped, her fork a few inches away from her mouth. “Remember what I said about any attempts to poison me— I’ll kick your asses from beyond the grave if you botch the job.”

Zahra and Jax both started laughing, as did Anastasia. They were the only people she’d ever met who both could and dared to laugh at her threats, because they knew damn well they were hollow.

“That’s all we need,” Zahra lamented, “Kamilah Sayeed haunting us from beyond the grave for the rest of eternity because we murdered her the wrong way.”

“If death is inevitable, I simply believe one should try to die well,” she huffed.

“If you haunt me I’ll find some way to make your life as a ghost miserable,” Anastasia giggled. “And the spaghetti is really good guys. Thank you.”

“Indeed it is really very nice. Thank you both.” She glanced at Anastasia and said, “and I wouldn’t haunt you, per say. I’d simply give anyone who attempted to take my place a swift bash to the skull that would be strong enough to kill them, so then I could spend all eternity torturing them for trying to sleep with my wife.”

They all started laughing at that and she smiled at the sight of her family sat around the table. Before they’d come into her life, shed believed that Gods she’d been raised to believe in had long since abandoned her. Now she really did know that they had actually blessed her beyond all measure. 

“You seem to have thought this scenario through,” Jax struggled to say through his mouthful of pasta. 

“I’m nothing if not thoroughly prepared for every scenario life may throw my way,” she shrugged. “And after being forced to watch that mortal movie with Whoopi Goldberg—“

“Ghost,” Anastasia giggled.

“Yes, Ghost,” she nodded, “I started thinking about what I would do were I in the dead man’s place—“

“And murdering people who piss you off from beyond the grave was your answer?,” Zahra cackled.

“Indeed.” She took a sip of her wine and squeezed Anastasia’s thigh beneath the table. “Only a fool would dare try to swoop in and take my place whilst I’m watching.”

“Well,” Anastasia giggled, “even though nobody is gonna be dying any time soon, you don’t have to worry about us getting a replacement Kami. You’re irreplaceable.”

Their gazes met and Anastasia’s eyes swept her in a velvet caress, truth stamped on her delicate features, and the subtlest little smile spread across her face. To love and be loved in this way was the most powerful of human desires, even for a woman of her age.

“Yeah, I really don’t think there’s anyone else in the world who’s this funny whilst thinking they’re being completely legit,” Jax chuckled. “Life would be boring as hell without you being extra all day, everyday.”

“You actually give Auntie Lily a run for her money for the craziest bitch in New York title,” Zahra added with a mischievous grin. 

She almost choked on her wine at that. “I’m perfectly sane, thank you very much!”

“Sure,” Jax and Zahra nodded.

“Annie, defend me at once!,” she laughed.

Anastasia reached out and affectionately patted her cheek, and those big blue eyes held hers. “You wouldn’t be you if you weren’t completely batshit in all the best ways. It’s why we love you so much.”

“Unbelievable,” she sighed, shaking her head in bemusement. “Un-bloody-believable.”

~ fin.


End file.
